Part 2: The School Doing $800k That Could Not Survive Without Its Owner

His enrollment coordinator had never been coached.

Eight months on the job. Not a single recorded call reviewed together. Not a single role play. Not one formal debrief after a lost enrollment.

David assumed she was doing fine because students were still enrolling.

When we started pulling call recordings the gaps were obvious. She was rushing past the discovery questions. She was quoting price before establishing value. She was accepting the I need to think about it objection without any attempt to understand what was underneath it.

Prospects for solar and EV programs are not just buying a certification. They are buying into an industry they believe in. They need to feel the school understands that. She was treating it like a transaction before the student ever felt heard.

She was not bad at her job. She had just never been taught to do it better.

Fifteen minutes a week listening to a recorded call together changed her close rate in 45 days. Not because she became a different person. Because someone finally showed her what good looked like.

You cannot coach what you cannot hear. If you are not recording calls you are not managing enrollment. You are hoping.

He had no daily huddle. No weekly rhythm. Nothing.

David's team of four operated on what they thought and muscle memory.

There was no morning check-in. No weekly enrollment review. No structured moment where anyone was accountable to a number.

The solar and EV space moves fast. New incentive programs. New employer partnerships forming in the region. New certifications being required by installers and dealerships. His team had no consistent moment to surface any of it.

Good weeks happened. Bad weeks happened. Nobody could tell you why either one occurred.

We installed a ten minute morning huddle. Yesterday's contacts. Today's follow ups. One objection someone got stuck on. Done.

Within three weeks David told me his coordinator was arriving five minutes early to prep her numbers before the huddle started.

Structure does not slow people down. It gives them something to aim at.

His two instructors had wildly different completion rates and he did not know it.

When we pulled completion data by instructor the numbers were jarring.

His senior instructor ran at 89 percent. The second instructor was at 54 percent.

Same solar and EV curriculum. Same student demographics. Same facility.

David had assumed they were performing similarly because nobody had ever complained. Students who drop out do not usually file a formal complaint. They just disappear.

The difference between the top and bottom instructor was not technical knowledge. Both knew solar installs and EV systems inside out. The difference was how they handled a struggling student in week two. The senior instructor caught the signs early and intervened. The others waited until the student had already mentally checked out.

We documented what the senior instructor did. Turned it into a coaching protocol. Applied it to the other.

Completion rates are not fixed. They are a reflection of instructor behavior. And instructor behavior can be coached when you know what you are looking for.

His enrollment process was not written down anywhere.

When David's coordinator took five days off for a family emergency David handled enrollment himself.

He did it completely differently than she did.

Different questions. Different follow up timing. Different way of handling the price conversation. Different way of explaining the difference between the solar certification track and the EV technology track when prospects asked which one to start with.

If you have two people running the same process two different ways you do not have a process. You have two people doing their best.

A documented enrollment process means a new coordinator can be onboarded in days not months. It means you can identify exactly where in the funnel conversions are breaking down. It means the school does not stop when one person is out.

If it is not written down it is a habit. Habits leave when people do.

He had never surveyed his graduates.

Six years of completions. Hundreds of students placed with solar installers, EV dealerships and fleet electrification companies. Not a single formal follow up at 90 or 180 days.

No placement rate data. No wage at placement data. No testimonials collected systematically. No referral ask at the moment of highest gratitude.

That data is not just good to have. Solar and EV employers talk to each other. When a workforce board is evaluating which programs to prioritize funding for in the clean energy sector they ask for outcomes data. When a regional solar installer is deciding whether to sponsor a cohort they want to see what happened to the last class.

David was producing great outcomes in a high-demand industry and had nothing to show for it because he never built the system to capture what was happening after graduation day.

One automated email sequence at 90 days and 180 days post completion would have been building that asset for six years.

He started it the week after we talked.

Until next time, control what YOU can control, take action on something, and don’t forget to smile. Like what you read?

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